Japan's incoming Prime Minister Shinzo Abe suggested Friday he could abandon the current government's policy of not allowing utilities to build new nuclear reactors.

"We'd like to review how to think about the issue nationwide," Abe said at a news conference in Yamaguchi Prefecture, referring to the policy aimed at steering the country toward reducing its dependence on nuclear energy following last year's Fukushima disaster. [link to english.kyodonews.jp] .

Nuclear reactors generate electricity. Everyone knows that. The general idea is simple: Start a chain reaction that creates a lot of heat and capture the heat to drive a turbine and make electricity, just as with coal- and gas-fired power plants,

But aren’t there other uses for heat? Don’t industries like steel, cement, petrochemicals, oil and many others require high temperature processes that manufacturers feed with C02-spewing fossil fuels? Wouldn’t it make sense to use small reactors instead, and thereby shrivel the leviathan carbon footprint left by those mighty mills that are stamping out goods and materials without which modern society cannot live?

Russia’s Sevmash Shipyard on Thursday officially launched construction of a nuclear-powered submarine capable of both research and rescue missions.

The new submarine, dubbed Project 09852, is designed by the construction bureau Rubin and is based on the project 949A Antey-class (NATO reporting name Oscar) attack submarine, Sevmash writes on its web site.

The submarine will be able to conduct different scientific research operations in ‘remote areas’ of the World’s oceans, take part search and rescue operations, provide installation of underwater equipment and inspection of them, tests of new equipment for scientific research and monitoring of underwater transport routes, according to the shipyard. The submarine will carry unmanned rescue submersibles. [link to www.nucpros.com] .

Wouldn’t it make sense to use small reactors instead, and thereby shrivel the leviathan carbon footprint left by those mighty mills that are stamping out goods and materials without which modern society cannot live?

On one hand, seems to be safer in terms of size.Good idea to kill two birds with one stone, eliminate fossil fuel and carbon.

On the other..Will it lead to a plethora of new 'small' reactors, all over the damn place..?Should they be in populated areas..?Will we have to subsidize them, as we did the others..?Spent fuel..?

and so on..

Maybe this would have been great at the onset of the tech.Segregated industrial/nuclear areas, with public safety first in mind..?

Oh well. Hindsight. Easy for me to say.

Nuclear tech could have gone down a better road.I think it went too far, too fast.. and the wrong people, with the wrong plans.. made profit decisions, at the expense of erring on the side of caution..

[snip] He said historically, Unit 1 has been the underperforming reactor, but now it seems Unit 2 has that distinction.

It's standard procedure for the NRC to increase oversight on a nuclear plant that has three or more automatic shutdowns within 7,000 hours of operation, Epstein said.

PPL Susquehanna was subject to additional oversight after Unit 1 was shut down July 16, 2010, when nearly 1 million gallons of water from the Susquehanna River flooded the basement of the turbine building.

Gundersen: Damage to Fukushima Unit 3 fuel racks could be from a prompt moderated criticality, not objects falling in the pool — What does Tepco know that they have not yet shown photos of? [link to enenews.com]

The nuclear crisis in Japan following the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, has brought the past tragedies at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl into the spotlight again. To offer a more thorough understanding of Three Mile Island, the Bulletin has compiled this reading list from its archives. Dating from 1945 to 1998 and 1998 to present, the Bulletin's archives are a valuable resource for those interested in additional materials.

The nuclear crisis in Japan following the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, has brought the past tragedies at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl into the spotlight again. To offer a more thorough understanding of Three Mile Island, the Bulletin has compiled this reading list from its archives. Dating from 1945 to 1998 and 1998 to present, the Bulletin's archives are a valuable resource for those interested in additional materials.

Quoting: Waterbug

Empty rhetoric...

[snip]

Overall Conclusion

After a six-month investigation of all factors surrounding the accident and contributing to it, the Commission con- cluded that: ‘To prevent nuclear accidents as serious as Three Mile Island, fundamental changes will be necessary in the organi- zation, procedures, and practices-and above all-in the attitudes of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and, to the ex- tent that the institutions we investigated are typical, of the nuclear industry.’ This conclusion speaks of necessary fundamental changes. We do not claim that our proposed recommendations are sufficient to assure the safety of nuclear power. Our findings do not, standing alone, require the conclusion that nuclear power is inherently too dangerous to permit it to continue and expand as a form of power generation. Neither do they suggest that the nation should move forward aggressively to deve1o.p addi- tional commercial nuclear power. They simply state that if the country wishes, for larger reasons, to confront the risks that are inherently associated with nu- clear power, fundamental changes are necessary if those risks are to be kept within tolerable limits.

After many years of operation of nu- clear power plants, with no evidence that any member of the general public has been hurt, the belief that nuclear power plants are sufficiently safe grew into a conviction. One must recognize this to understand why many key steps that could have prevented the accident at Three Mile Island were not taken. The Commission is convinced that this at- titude must be changed to one that says nuclear power is by its very nature po- tentially dangerous, and, therefore, one must continually question whether the safeguards already in place are sufficient to prevent major accidents. A com- prehensive system is required in which equipment and human beings are treated with equal importance.

TOKYO — A team of Japanese scientists said Thursday that faults underneath a nuclear plant in northern Japan are most likely active, a discovery that could further delay the restart of idled reactors.

The four-member panel commissioned by the Nuclear Regulation Authority said that at least two major faults underneath the Higashidori nuclear plant in Aomori Prefecture are believed to be active — a contradiction of operator Tohoku Electric Power Co’s assertion that they are inactive.

The panel said the faults could cause magnitude 7-class earthquakes near the reactor, which was opened in 2005 and is among the newest of Japan’s aging reactors. [link to www.japantoday.com] .

TOKYO — A team of Japanese scientists said Thursday that faults underneath a nuclear plant in northern Japan are most likely active, a discovery that could further delay the restart of idled reactors.

The four-member panel commissioned by the Nuclear Regulation Authority said that at least two major faults underneath the Higashidori nuclear plant in Aomori Prefecture are believed to be active — a contradiction of operator Tohoku Electric Power Co’s assertion that they are inactive.

The panel said the faults could cause magnitude 7-class earthquakes near the reactor, which was opened in 2005 and is among the newest of Japan’s aging reactors. [link to www.japantoday.com] .

GLP's best Fuku thread: Thread: *** Fukushima *** and other nuclear-----updates and linkstwitter: #citizenperth“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would use the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I knew the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”- Albert Einstein

FORKS, Wash —A team hiked over primitive coastal trails to reach a dock that apparently floated from Japan after last year’s tsunami and just washed ashore on a Washington state beach, and an official said the group found Japanese writing inside the structure.

The team of tsunami debris experts is trying to confirm that the dock is from Japan and drifted for more than a year before winding up on one of the most remote beaches on the U.S. West Coast. [link to www.japantoday.com] .

"We’ve fought this battle before. In the late 1980s, NRC adopted a policy it called 'Below Regulatory Concern (BRC),' that would allowed about 30% of the nation’s 'low-level' radioactive waste to be treated as normal garbage and dumped in landfills, be burned in incinerators, and yes, be recycled into consumer products. According to the NRC’s own calculations, its BRC policy posed a 1 in 286 risk of fatal cancer over a person’s lifetime.

NIRS and our allies responded with one of our largest organizing campaigns ever. Grassroots activists succeeded in getting hundreds of towns, cities and counties to adopt anti-BRC resolutions. The texts of those resolutions were sent up the chain to Governors, state legislators and Congressmembers. They responded: 15 states passed laws banning BRC within their borders. Hearings were held in the House and in 1992, Congress officially overturned the BRC policy.

But both NRC and DOE have been trying to implement the concept piecemeal ever since. In the late 1990s, DOE proposed a similar program to deregulate radioactively contaminated metal. Instead, DOE was forced to suspend the idea indefinitely—a suspension that stands today and that DOE is now trying to lift. Even DOE admits this program was defeated due to “public concern.”

The probability of strong earthquakes striking eastern Japan within the next 30 years has markedly increased, according to experts.

The government's Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion released a series of upgraded "National Seismic Hazard Maps" on Dec. 21 that chart the probabilities of ground motion reaching lower 6 or higher on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 over the period.

Japan's incoming Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Sunday his government, set to be formed Wednesday, will thoroughly review the cause behind the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

"The root cause of the (nuclear) accident was not fully uncovered so there is a need to make clear whether this was a man-made disaster or not," Abe said during a television program appearance. [link to english.kyodonews.jp] .

Abe repeats need to review policy of not allowing new nuclear reactors

Japan's next prime minister, Shinzo Abe, reiterated Saturday that he will review the current government's policy of not allowing utilities to build new nuclear reactors.

Abe, the Liberal Democratic Party leader who is set to become the new premier on Wednesday, made the remarks to reporters in Tabuse, Yamaguchi Prefecture, hinting that he could jettison the policy aimed at reducing dependence on nuclear energy following last year's Fukushima disaster. [link to english.kyodonews.jp] .

After a Level 1 incident was announced upon the disclosure of two deformed fuel rods which were stick together at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, TEPCO investigated 65 spent fuel assemblies at the Unit 5 spent fuel pool and discovered that 18 of the 65 assemblies were found to be bent.

The crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11, has brought the past tragedies at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island into the spotlight again. To offer a more thorough understanding of Chernobyl, the Bulletin has compiled this reading list from its archives. Dating from 1945 to 1998 and 1998 to present, the Bulletin's archives are a valuable resource for those interested in additional materials.